When a soul is baptised in battle for saving the honour of its country and countrymen and the same soul has then to be subjected to a mandate from the same countrymen to justify to their elected heartless and convictionless representatives that their saviours, retired long since, be given their rightfully earned benefits, does it encourage that soul to continue living or just melt away into oblivion?

By this act, the Government has clearly exhibited weak moral strength, despite all the reps from various political parties in the Parliament, who have supported the cause individually, but failed to carry their conviction.

What is it that is preventing them from endorsing what they believe in as individuals but are allowing such a spineless action being taken by an equally indecisive Government? Don’t they feel ashamed of shifting responsibility, especially when they are backed by the Power of the People, to a Committee, composed of members out of them with power only to complete their examination and analysis and give it back to the same Government to take the decision? Will the Government then do it or raise another bogey?

Well, here is my strong consent to agree to sanction ‘One Rank One Pension’ to the veterans and ensure peace to the troubled ‘Soul’.

My Bhuaji (my Dad’s Elder Sister) passed on to the other world today! Since my earliest childhood days, I have remembered calling her “Bhuji”, and “Dadiji” was the name we used to call our beloved “Phupaji” (who passed away a while back also). Since I was born, she has been the Grandmother to me. She had christened me with the name of “Timi”, which stuck to me and the whole extended Family knew me by that name, till I got married. With shocked relatives calling up my Dad, after reading the wedding card (which had me mentioned by my formal name), and asking “when did you get another son and from whom??!” :-)

The last I met her was in August, just before leaving for Australia. It was a surprise visit of 3 days, which I had made on an impulse and just followed it through. It was the last time and I am thankful for my impulsiveness for that. She was looking great and as happy and full of humour at that time, just like I have always known her to be.

My Dad has been the baby in the Family, with Bhuji being almost 10 years older to him. He used to get all the pampering and loved being spoilt silly by her. Her house was the place, where we used to spend most of our Summer holidays. I still remember the house and the way it evolved. It was a brick and mortar construction, created during the partition days, from my “Dadiji’s” imagination and inventiveness. He had done up 2 rooms in the front, with a big arc in the center, where lovely cool breeze used to flow through during the high heat of the Amritsar Summer. The “veeda” or patio, was a brick and mud area, where all the kids used to play around in. And we loved it there. The onus of being the youngest fell on me and I used to take full advantage of being spoilt by her. She had a way of making food so yum and delicious, and with loving care, that even the vegies used to taste great. Although, she being what she was, it was always my favourite dishes and never the vegies used to show up, as I hated them :-)

Even when I grew up, I used to love escaping to her loving and caring arms, which used to always be welcoming, whatever mischief I used to create and run into her arms for protection. Even growing up with all the hardships, she faced, she was the epitome of humour and love for us all. Never have I seen her not live up to the humour and most of it rubbed on to us as we grew. Whenever I used to be there, it was the choice of food which I choose that got made, and she used to ensure that everyone who was there got what she/he wanted to eat. You could feel that love attracting you to her always and that is what made me go over.

She will be remembered in my heart forever! Alive with all the Love and Affection and Humour she has left for us to carry on with.

We start with school, goto college, complete it. Then what! Go ahead and get a job. And the grind starts…

We start out fresh in a job. We gain experience. Then we want to get into the race of doing something which will make us stand out of the peers. We start working hard to make this come true. We wish to get ahead, of those who are running with us and those who have already threaded on the same path before. Gradually, we start giving more to work and then comes the day. We wake up and wish to rush to the Laptop to check the mails in our mailbox, or open the Blackberry to check the mails.

Now comes the best part, one day there is no mail in your inbox (not even SPAM!!), and there you go into a depression!! Does that sound like someone you know? Maybe yourself?! I have experienced something like a mail depression and to get over it, have opened multiple email accounts which do manage to get atleast a mail a day to me :-)

Nowadays, when I am alone, the first thing (even before my eyes open in the morning), is to rush to the laptop and check if anyone has sent me a mail. That is what technology has made us to be. Check yourself online, if you have a presence, you are good. Else, sorry buddy, you are a no one, even if there are real people out there who know you and care for you. Because nowadays, you are recognized by the number of online friends you have and the number of mails you get in your inbox!!! :-)

Nowadays there just seems to be too many people coming to the Internet and asking for your eye-balls to be stuck to their sites. I read somewhere that we tend to look at things that move. This is a primal instinct in us, which comes when we were hunting to live, not make a living. This trait has stuck to us and marketeers are taking advantage of this trait on TV and on social networking sites. They make us watch or play games which require our interaction with moving objects. This gets us get glued to the same and along with it the games also give us competitiveness to play with. The final outcome is that the social sites and the advertisers convey their subtle messages to us and get us to buy stuff … Ever seen that to quieten a child these days, the parents tend to make them sit in front of a TV and then those small innocent things are glued for life.

I for one have had enough of this game and am getting tired of social networks and their likes. They are making me dumb and dumber by the day and my concentration is going along with a change in my nature and attitude towards work.

I saw a movie today – Kameney a hindi movie with a suspense touch … it did not give much information from what I already know, with a lot of masala added to the whole. Somehow, it reminds me of a few people I know quite well. People change, but habits don’t, and nor do the nature of people. One does need to realize this and not let people take you in for something as granted!

Desires can be many and the more man explores those only grow and from what I have seen, they grow like the rabbits – they multiply :-)
I got my initial start at a small organization, which taught me a lot of things, which still come in use to me today. I never gathered an aptitude for writing language … although, as I was already in the software industry, I choose the next best and easiest way out – testing. I had a good analytical mind, combined with logical thinking. Also, my Manager at the first company encouraged us all in that direction. His mantra was – without being good testers, we cannot become good developers.

At tht time, I did not have much in mind and was a happy go-lucky person – content with whatever I was getting and enjoying life to the fullest, not bothered about what the future would hold for me… then came in responsibilities. These began to grow with each passing year and I got greed to fulfill the responsibilities and also my dreams. This became a turning point for me and I started jumping to whatever opportunity gave me more money and a sense of gain. But soon my desire to fulfill myself and the desire of my loved ones began to go above my expectations and tension took over the happy attitude. But I think I had lost the competitive edge to cut others in my happy nature and grow above them. I had got ‘content’. Now, this is a very misused word!! I thought I wil be able to overcome this easily enough, but it does not seem so. And now the desires of my loved ones seem to be becoming mine … I want to become what they see me as, and this is breeding frustration and I am back to honing my competitive skills. I know it will take time, but for now I have to live with it and strive more to become what I had wanted to instead of the average Joe tester, which I think I am gradually getting turned into.

I have been going over this topic a lot these days and trying to figure out a good difference and meeting point of these two terms. The only way I can merge these are when people say – “Educate the person, to make him literate”. But is this really true? I think not. You can make a person literate by making him read and write a spoken language [different from a computer or other language synonyms in use], but can you really make him educated? Education imparts a lot more than just simple literacy for the person. The person may be having a high degree in his name, but then he would only be literate in a sense of what he has studied. Education to me means the overall development and growth of an individual, who gains maturity from what he studied.
Cases are where they say, ‘the Mother should be literate to teach her child’. Well! to that I can add, that she should be educated enough to understand what she learnt. Rather then make her learn by rote, as has been the norm in most of our cases. People who learn by rote, due to peer or parent pressure, never learn anything, except to throw up whatever they mugged up. That is not education or learning, that is simply trying to make sure that a ‘guilt’ duty has been imparted. Check out the education given by the Teachers of the past and the literacy campaigns being run today. Although the Teachers are still that dedicated lot, but the ‘Education System’ and its “protectors”, try their mightiest to make the kids into monogrammed robots, who will become voting banks for them, rather than ‘Thinking Adults’. I think it is time we woke up to this reality and started thinking of making ‘Educated Adults’, rather than ‘Literate Adults’. Literacy can be taught at any age, as has been proven with the Kerala initiative, but we now need education also to be imparted with the same zeal. This will make our children into better Human Beings, who can learn to think and do things, rather than remian kids their whole life.

Moods and attitude go hand in hand most of the time. But they should not effect you so drastically that you start thinking of where you might be going wrong or doing the wrong thing. I have been having these stupid mood swings a lot these days. I get grouchy and all messed up – even into raising my voice for no necessary reason. I yet have to figure out why this is happening…

The basic thing I figured out was that I was taking out my frustration of the Office at Home and getting more frustrated and grouchy and that was getting worse every time :-(

Many things have been contributing to this, mostly related to work and office atmosphere, which has not at the least been supportive and things just got escalated. I know the problem lies within me and I have to improve it, but I think for that one needs time for oneself, which I have not and did not get …

Dreams and ego clashed and each started getting ahead of each other in a never ending race. Aspirations climbed, but could not be achieved. Expenses grew without the necessary infrastructure to support them, satisfaction ultimately became null. This led to all things growing bad and me falling into the never ending loop of drudgery and self-morose, which left me all that bad and made things go even worse…

Seems like a sad state of affairs, from which I will have to lift myself soon, or…

So in continuation with the latest series of marriage and after marriage… :-) It has been 6 months now that I finally managed to find a suitable gal for myself. It was difficult adjusting to a new member, who is inquisitive enough to inquire about everything you do or don\’t do. I have never had that experience before. After they just don\’t say \”Marriage is a totally new experience… :-P\”

I have been trying to understand some of my reactions and some of her habits for the last few months and getting nowhere :-( After all the adage that \”it is not difficult to know a woman\’s mind, it is impossible…\” is not just created as an after thought …